Eiffel Tower Viewing Deck

This guide to the Eiffel Tower Viewing Deck at Paris Las Vegas traces how a plan to build a full-size replica of Gustave Eiffel's tower ran into the FAA's flight paths near McCarran Airport, forcing designers to shrink it to exactly half scale while still reaching five hundred forty feet of steel. It follows the details they insisted on getting right: paint chips matched to the original in Paris, permission from that city's mayor for its nighttime lighting, and faux rivets bolted on purely for looks since modern welding made the real thing unnecessary. Three of its four legs plunge down through the casino floor below, where bets are still placed in its shadow.